Yes, White Supremacists, Some Vikings Were Muslims and Thor Was Brown

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

16 October 17

he archeological identification of stylized Arabic text for God (Allah) and Ali (the prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law) in burial garments of the Vikings in Sweden has thrown white supremacists into a tizzy. While the garments could just be the result of trade with the Middle East, it can’t be ruled out that there were some converts to Islam. This possibility drove the Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, the Breitbart staff, and other losers bonkers, since Vikings for them are the ur-Whites.

There was a similar controversy over Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 movie “Thor” from Marvel Studios, inasmuch as it cast Idris Elba as a Black guardian of the Bifrost bridge between earth and Asgard. As usual, the white nationalists were just being brain dead. First of all, they might have noticed that this version of Norse mythology is the brainchild of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, two Jewish American giants of story-telling.

The biggest problem with white supremacy is how hateful it is. But its second biggest problem is how stupid it is. That is not to say that intelligent people cannot be members (Steve Bannon, e.g.). It is that they are captive of moronic premises. If you buy a stupid premise (global heating is not caused by humans, e.g.), then all your further statements will be false because they are built on a rotten foundation.

So genetic testing of those buried in Viking grave sites have turned up a some with Iranian origins, and Iran may be the origin of a significant number of Vikings.

And, Vikings ruled a maritime empire during the medieval warming period when Scandinavia could support a fair population, roughly 800-1200 CE (AD). For instance, Vikings briefly conquered Sicily in 860. But during the whole period 827-902 the island was gradually coming under Arab Muslim rule from North Africa. Their troops were Arab, Berber and Black African. If you don’t think Vikings mingled with people of color in Sicily before returning north, including having some children by local women, you don’t know much about medieval society. And that some of them converted to Islam is entirely plausible. In fact the 827 invasion was provoked by a Byzantine official who felt badly used and so converted to Islam and became an agent of the Aghlabid emirs of North Africa. A Viking woman buried with a Muslim ring has been found by archeologists. Vikings also traded with the Abbasid Empire and raided Muslim Spain (al-Andalus). Vikings were not racists, and wouldn’t have know what a race is. As for their “tribes,” tribes in medieval society were like our political parties. People joined successful ones and suddenly found an ancestor in common with the clan they joined.

The populations of empires are always mongrels, and the Vikings were just not all of one ethnic origin or religious belief.

Moreover, Norse mythology is just a version of Indo-European mythology which is shared by Iran and India. In ancient Iran, as well, there was a bridge to the next word, called Chinwat, similar to the Norse Bifrost. Thor is clearly the same as the Vedic Indra and the Midgaard Serpent is Vritra. In ancient Iran, Thor was Faridun who fought the serpentine Zohak. That is, the closest you can get to Norse mythology today is Indian religion. Yes, supremacists, there are brown Aryans.

Worst of all for the supremacists, there are no races as popularly conceived. Our outward appearance is dictated by only 2% of our genes, and no, has nothing to do with intelligence or character attributes. Irish and Chinese are genetically almost identical despite representing the easternmost and westernmost extent of homo sapiens sapiens. Skin color is an adaptation to UV rays. When a woman is pregnant, she needs enough UV rays from the sun to produce vitamin D in the embryo, but not so much that they will cause genetic damage. So in very sunny places like the Congo, nature selects for black skin. In Sweden, nature over time (13,000 years) selects for white skin. The people in Sweden came from places to the south and began by being dark.

So give us a break. Vikings were all kinds of people. And so are genuine Americans.

The Deep State Did Not Cause My Motorcycle Accident, But It Does Exist

By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News

16 October 17

was in a terrible traffic accident two weeks ago. I was on a Vespa scooter driving up Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC, when the driver of the car in front of me slammed on his brakes for no reason. There was nobody in front of him and the lane was completely clear. I had no idea why he did it. I hit my brakes and swerved left to avoid him, but I clipped the left end of his bumper and went over the handlebars, landing on my shoulder. I fractured my spine, broke six ribs, and broke my clavicle.

The driver, meanwhile, continued driving to the end of the block, pulled over, and sat in his car. He never got out to see if I was injured. He just sat there and waited for the cops to arrive. Two pedestrians came to my aid, with one calling 911 and the other asking me questions like, “Do you know your name? Do you know what year it is? Do you know what happened?” Finally, an ambulance came, along with the fire department and a uniformed police officer. As I was being loaded into the ambulance, I saw the cop talking to the driver of the car I hit.

I spent the next six days in George Washington University Hospital. A few days into that stay, a friend called me to say that an article about the accident had appeared in Newsweek. The article said that I had “questions” about the accident and that maybe it had indeed not been an accident. I actually did have questions about it. The article said that there was no police report, and when the Newsweek reporter asked the police department for one, he was told that there was no record of any accident having taken place. A witness added that after I was loaded into the ambulance, the cop just told the driver of the car to leave. Just drive away. Was this a Michael Hastings-type incident? I didn’t know.

But it wasn’t. It was just a traffic accident. Newsweek later updated its article to say that a bus had suddenly pulled out from the curb lane into the driving lane and the driver had hit his brakes to avoid hitting the bus. He didn’t see that I was behind him.

A few days into my hospital stay, I gave an interview to a Greek television station. The interviewer asked what had happened, and I told him that I thought it was just a simple traffic accident. He asked if I had considered the idea that perhaps it was a set-up. I replied that, sure, it had crossed my mind. But there were so many moving parts in such a scenario that it just seemed to be too complicated to pull off. Besides, despite the severity of my injuries, I was only going five miles per hour, according to the fire department. But why, the reporter asked, had the police told the car’s driver to drive away? Why was there no police report? Could this have been something more sinister?

I knew from my many years in the Intelligence Community that employees of several different governmental agencies carry what is euphemistically called a “get out of jail free” card. If you are on some sort of secret mission inside the United States and you get wrapped up in something that requires the intervention of law enforcement, you hand the cop your “get out of jail free” card, he calls a number on the card, the person who answers confirms that you’re on sensitive government business, and he asks that the cop send you on your way. This was probably what happened, I said. It was probably just an accident.

Still, the reporter pressed, “You’ve been outspoken about the existence of the Deep State. Isn’t it possible, after all you’ve said about the CIA, torture, human rights, and such over the years that this was something more ominous? A message, perhaps?”

I have to admit that he got me on that one. Deep down, I still think it was an accident. But when the Attorney General of the United States tells a U.S. senator, with a completely straight face in an open Congressional hearing, that the president can have an American citizen assassinated on U.S. soil without benefit of a trial, it gives one pause. I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but maybe there was something more to this than I was willing to admit to myself.

And that leads to a far more important issue than John Kiriakou’s traffic accident. Where is the accountability for the Deep State? When Congress does not exercise its constitutionally-mandated oversight, who is responsible for protecting Americans from their government? To whom do those secretive governmental agencies report, if not to Congress?

Thanks to the revelations of Ed Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, and others, we know that the Deep State is real. It’s ominous. It’s a threat to our democracy. We have to demand accountability through our elected officials. We have to keep talking about these issues, writing about them, marching to draw attention to them, and demanding that our Congressional representatives do what we say. Without it, the country is doomed and we’re all in danger, even from a simple “traffic accident.”

John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.